Oz animal protection groups are none too impressed by a draft government guide to disposing of young kangaroos (joeys) by either "forcefully swinging" their heads against a vehicle towbar or blasting them with a shotgun, Reuters reports.
The proposed Department of Environment "code of conduct" is designed to deal with joeys …

Stone the crows!

Orphaned Kangaroo Lovers

Australia needs to start a database of Orphaned Kangaroo Lovers, then collect the orphaned kangaroos and require the "Lovers" to care for these animals at their own expense. This act will take care of the problem and everyone will be happy.

Bashing their brains in or blowing their brains out.

I'm with Anonymous Coward on this one. Perhaps experts on these matters can enlighten me but wouldn't shooting a joey be a guaranteed immediate death for these critters? That sounds more humane then bashing their skulls to bits.

@Dave

Battered Kangaroo.

No other option.

It would be far crueler to leave the animal to die slowly. The only other option would be to build up a nationwide network of WPA/RSPCA centers for looking after orphaned joeys, and the sheer size of the country makes that a very expensive and therefore unlikely solution. It's not like they're a protected species being harpooned for profit, so the whale analogy just sounds hysetrical. Wish some of these bleedingheart twits would think of the realities of life outside their comfy suburban homes.

Seeing as roo leather makes for great footie boots, can I have a roo-skin jacket, please?

shotgun not humane?

yeah, seriously RSPCA, you guys have f**ked this one up. You whinge<sp?> about the shotgun, but a towbar to the skull is better? Well, if I was gonna die from a head wound I would prefer the "no head left" method to the "head with big dent in it" method. Cus.. with a shotgun.. there is just no brain left to feel the pain.. Right?

So I think we can all agree, Roo leather it is, that stuff is so good. Why do we always pick on cows? Although it has to be said, Roo meat is probably a bit tough, they hop about so much. Also, gotta agree with chris who said 'humans top predator' (or something like that) cus um.. yea we are still animals, we play a part in the eco-system. It's nature. Not everything done by humanity is unnatural, in the words of the Bloodhound Gang, "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals..." I want roo gloves, roo shoes, roo belt, roo wallet. Any sad ba****d gonna make a joke about the shoes?

BOOM HEADSHOT

Shotguns

Perhaps the Oz method of using a shotgun is to hold the barrel and bludgeon the joey with the stock (uses less ammunition and is in theory free once you've got the shotgun)? In which case it's no better than bashing their brains out on the towbar.

Another plan would be to export them all to the snowy wastes of Canada so the hunters up there can exercise their bloodlust on them instead of the baby seals.

We'll 'ave 'em!

Barbituate injection?

Should everyone in sight of, or planning a trip though, kangaroo country be issued hypos they can use to painlessly (and bloodlessly - and that's the measure of a civilized society!) put the joeys to sleep? (Not sure if that American phrase translates - it's what we say when we take an ailing pet on the one-way trip to the vet.)

I suspect the shotgun may be seen as uncivilized because it's a gun, and the Aussies are distancing themselves from such uncivilized devices. (Look at how many guns the United States has, and the fact we Americans can barely cook a slice of dead cow without burning our hands. ;) The answer is the needle, naturally, and I don't see how that could cause any problems....

Tough meat

Bit harsh to suggest that shotguns are less humane than swinging it against a towbar. What about the poor cop who has to do it? Much easier to shoot the thing than try and wrestle with it's writhing body while you get a good enough swing up to clout it against the back end of your ute. What if you miss? What if you don't hit it hard enough? You'd be left holding a whimpering, terrified, bloody, orphaned baby animal in an incredible amount of pain. Jesus, it doesn't bear thinking about. If you've got to do it it's much better for you and the joey to give it both barrels and get the job over quickly.

(When I was younger I had to dispatch - with a spade - more than a few injured birds that our cat couldn't be arsed to eat. It was f*ing horrible. Ex-pat Dad made me the 'man of the house', which as far as I could tell just meant killing things for my mum.)

@Dave

Roo meat

Roo meat is also VERY low in fat. I am not sure if it gets the Heart Foundation tick of appoval, but it should.

Wild Roos carry a LOT of flesh parasites, though, so cook the meat thoroughly if you got it 'wild' rather than processed for human consumption at the local butcher.

And correct, AC, unlike most other Aussie Animals that really are endangered, the big Roo species are at around 3x the populations of pre-white-arrival. They thrive on all the grassland we cleared for the sheep (and don't crop it erosion-bare like sheep will).

And I believe the 'kill with shotgun' DOES refer to bashing their brains in with the stock :-(

And the damage one does when it crosses 300m of paddock in a few dozen bounds to deliberately ram your car on country roads is unbelievable, as I know from experience!

@Icenian

Human arrogance...

I'm certainly no environmentalist but...aren't humans animals? Domesticated primates, to be precise. No more. The only people who believe otherwise are the remaining religious idiots. Culling my arse. My goodness, what an ego some of us chimps have. What would the planet do without us, the kangaroos and elephants (they `cull` them too in Africa) would take over and then who would save the day!? Oh thank f*ck for the caretakers of the planet ;) I believe Hitler tried something similar once with human races.

I bet half of you who make flippant comments about government endorsed massacre of any given species (other than us precious human beings) are the same idiots who are banging on about your carbon footprint and all kinds of other nonsense. You funny little creatures.

Don't get me wrong, if it was me or my family or a kangaroo, the little f*cker would be spread all over the road, but it's not, so I have no interest and can see no justification for this. All life is precious to the creature living it, and how incredibly arrogant of us to assume that anything needs it's life taking away for it's own good.

While we're on it, why don't we just kill everything for `it's own good` just on the offchance it will die eventually anyway. Oh hang on....

So !

So these wankers have obviously not visited Yarralumla in Canberra , ACT, to see these pests first hand , but when you have yummy edible healthy delicious national symbol which is one of the few ruminants that does not produce green house gas unlike the bovine variety which can be tough as old shoe leather in the land of the free and imprisoned by fear of the improbable self wanking leader !

After all in Oz both national symbols are in such plentiful supplies and are so tasty too and hardly likely to become extinct short of being struck by a comet , who really cares !

As they would say down under in Oz , go forth and multiply elsewhere , your comments have been noted and filed under FW !

Quick boys throw another Kangaroo steaks on the barbecue and refill the beers and toast to the victory over a bunch of retreating wimps who can't play cricket from another northern hemisphere sub continent yet again !

Humans are actually very good at culling eachother!

It is possibly our most noted characteristic, and about the only thing left in the world to keep our population even slightly in check.

For now, at least: I'm eagerly awaiting something to really shaft us as a species - not necessarily wipe us out, just knock us down a few pegs - and even if I am one of those nature culls, at least I will get to die amused.

Swinging a roo

Here in NZ, the "swing head against fence post" method is often used to kill possums (the Oz variety that some idiots introduced here). I've done this a few times myself. Hold the possum by the tail (making sure it can't get its claws on you) and execute a near 270deg swing so that its skull impacts the fence post.

One swing and it is game over. Far less stress on the animal than putting it in a car and taking it to the vet to be euthenased etc.

A shotgun blast to the head (or .22) or baseball bat/blunt object would do the trick humanely too.

Considering that Oz truckies don't slow down for adult roos it is no wonder that there are a lot of young roos to be taken care of one way or another.

The bleeding heart brigade might like their meat in neat refrigeration packs without considering that there's a death involved and if a roo needs to be killed they'd rather give the job to someone else. My vegetarian son would happily do the job for you, not because he's a crank but because he knows it has to be done and wants to get the aniumal's suffereing dealt to immediately.

Still got the scars

During the drought(s), they come down out of the hills and are an absolute menace on the streets. They will actually leap in front of moving vehicles to get away from them (!). I belive deer in the US do the same thing - the normal animal "pursuit avoidance" algothim being unsuitable for when a car is following you on a street.

Hit one on my scooter this October (Piaggio Fly 125). Roo was fine. I slid out and wound up with a broken ulna. I have a plate in it now, and the wrist is still not right - loss of mobility and nerve damage affecting sensation in the the 2nd finger.

personally, I see nothing whatever inhumane about a short, sharp blow to the back of the joey's head by swinging it against the towbar - provided you get it right first time. Maybe the ACT govt should run courses. Sign me up!

@ LaeMi Qian

I share your views on the need for something to hit humanity hard. Me, I'm holding out for Apophis in 2039 - hopefully this rather large chunk of interplanetary rock will give the Earth a decent rabbit punch and do a proper job. I'd be okay checking out under a new Ice Age if it meant knocking off at least 75% of the human population.

Hopefully the survivors would retain enough knowledge of the "Golden Age" to learn from our mistakes: i.e. to ban the use of money and "property" to make money, so that money only corresponds to actual work done and nothing else. At least that way they could set up a government that wouldn't be subject to the dictates of Big Business. But somehow I doubt it. Humans are innately lazy, greedy and selfish and whatever system we set up, someone will find a way to profit from the labour of others while contributing nothing themselves.

Bloody moron activists.

For those suggesting a network of people willing to raise these orphans... We already have more than one. RSPCA, WIRES, etc. They all either deal with them, or know other people/organizations that do.

To those thinking it's cruel to smack them to death... Yes. It probably is. But the other options are to leave it to die slowly from whatever injuries it's sustained when it was hit by a car or whatever.

For those that have never had the misfortune of hitting a roo... The condition of the roo and it's family is the LAST thing on your mind afterwards. The 2 common thoughts are "MY CAR!!!!" and "thank goodness the impact didn't send me into that tree" (or similar).

Finally, I've come across a young roo standing on the road bleeding from the mouth before. I stopped, looked at, and decided there was nothing I could do.

Sitting here now, the suggestion of carrying syringes of something lethal sounds like the best option... Though they would of course be just as dangerous as carrying a loaded gun around in the car.

The joy of detcord

Rich - forget the "suitable explosive" - a granny knot of det cord around said joey's neck would do a fine job. Crack, then you've got 2 bits of excellently tenderised bush veal. Det cord's not known as the "bush chainsaw" for nothing. heh heh. Ever seen it cut a 44gal drum in 2... magic.

Crikey!

Road Kill

I drove back from Melbourne 9Vic) to Adelaide (SA) a week ago. A 1000k's - at night and I can assure you I was looking out for Roo's the whole time. They'll came out of scrub across the road when they get startled by lights. The general rule is, don't swerve. Brake hard if you can and hit them if you must. an adult roo does enormous damage to the front of a car. I don't have a roo-bar so I'd expect to be stranded out on the highway with a crushed radiator.

On this road, there is a possibility of saving a joey. You might be able to get ti to the next town and maybe there'll be a vet or local police station. They might have to bump the little bugger off if there's no kindly rescue person locally.

Out in the bush though, forget about saving the joey. It could take days to get to a decent town and the joey would get completely stressed and dehydrated. Now most people I now don't go travelling with shotguns or 22's so the crack on the head might be the most humane option. I'd opt for the slaughtering knife myself.